Talk:Thai alphabet

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Contents 1 Name of the Thai Script? 2 Thai script is not an alphabet 3 Transliteration 4 The romanization blues 5 Other symbols 6 In fact there is an official romanized trascription of Thai 7 Does anyone has information about these 3 Thai symbols: อฺ อ๎ อํ ? 8 Typewriter story 9 y or ɨ? 10 align to Thai section of IPA handbook 11 Old Thai 12 Number of vowels 13 Punctuation

[edit] Name of the Thai Script?

Does anyone know what the Thai name for the Thai script is? I assume this is what's in brackets at the being of the article. What's the name of the script transliterated to English? What does it's name mean (in a literal sense)? Or is it just called 'Thai script' in Thai?

• See [Thai-to-English | Alphabet]. Also see my changes, unless someone reverted themLee 16:46, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Thai script is not an alphabet

Thai script is an abugida (a.k.a. alphasyllabary), not an alphabet. How come such a glaring inaccuracy was made in the very name of the article, repeated all over it, but no-one in over two years of edits has spotted it? The most appropriate name for this article IMO would be "Thai script". I have no time to fix all the redirects that would arise from renaming this article myself, so please some sysop or someone else with more spare time do it, because such an inaccuracy does not belong in any serious encyclopedia. Uaxuctum 10:27, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Probably because it depends on how narrow your description of "alphabet" is, and how much exotic grammatology terminology you expect casual readers to know. "Abugida" is a recently coined, not well known word. Typical dictionary definitions of "alphabet" are "The letters of a language, arranged in the order fixed by custom", and "A system of characters or symbols representing sounds or things". Both of these fit the Thai writing system. While I would hold that the current title is not wrong I agree that "Thai script" might be better, but perhaps the difference would be similar to the difference between "English alphabet" and "Latin script". — Hippietrail 12:49, 7 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Uaxuctum. This page should be moved. I propose it to be moved to Thai script. Most other articles about abugidas are named like this. Yenx 22:12, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

"Thai alphabet" is the name by which a great majority of people would look for it. Only the most narrow specialist would try to find it as "Thai abugida". Perhaps "Thai script" is a possible point of entry for a few people, so a pass-through from there would be right. As explained above the dictionary definition of alphabet easily covers the Thai writing system. −Woodstone 20:03, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

I quite agree that this article should be moved to Thai script. In the Writing Systems WikiProject we are trying to come to consensus about names for articles about writing systems. It is likely that "Thai script" will conform to that model. -- Evertype·��� 17:49, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

Are you also going to move "Latin alphabet" and "English alphabet" to "Latin script" (etc). I think the proposed move would only obscure the article. There is no compelling reason that it cannot be described as an alphabet. Only a few specialists would look for it as "script" and they most likely do not need the information anyway. −Woodstone 20:41, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

There is a difference between the Latin script and the Latin alphabet. The Thai script is used for other languages besides Thai, too. And it's not an alphabet, it's an abugida. -- Evertype·��� 23:27, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

As repeated several times before it's only not an alphabet in the most narrow specialistic interpretation (and even then only by a tiny margin). For common usage it certainly qualifies as an alphabet. −Woodstone 20:49, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Actually, I think it would be wrong to call it an alphabet: An alphabet is, in large, a system of writing in which every sound is represented with a letter in script, and the letters are read one by one after eachother (although digraphs and such occure). The Thai script however, has consonants placed on the line, and separate wovel symbols placed around these; some even placed before the consonant they are to be pronounced after. That there are no separate symbols for the vowel sounds, but that they have to stand at a consonant, also adds. This is simply not an alphabet. It is an abugida, but also a script. Moving it to "Thai script" seems to me the best thing to do, and I don't really see the controvercy, since most other abugidas and other forms of writing have articles named the same way. Yenx 23:44, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

I vote with the "move" crowd. Of course, there will have to be a redirect from "Thai alphabet" for people that prefer to use the term "alphabet" loosely. "Script" is a more generic term that encompasses all writing systems, whether alphabetic, syllabc, pictorial or whatnot. If a purist really wants a page for "Thai abugida", I would vote for putting the same redirect on it, leading to "Thai script". Calling writing systems "scripts" is a nice evenhanded way to have a label without getting into arguments over precisely which label is the right one. If we define an alphabet as having a 1:1 relationship between symbol and phoneme, then there would be no such thing as an English alphabet. Just about the only "alphabet" in the world would be Finnish. --Cbdorsett 10:43, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

The most prominent examples of other languages do not have an article "xxx script", but redirect to something more likely to be looked up by the reader. For example Chinese script redirects to Chinese character, Arabic script redirects to Arabic alphabet, Hebrew script redirects to Hebrew alphabet, Devanagari script (for Hindi) redirects to Devanagari. So (if only for consistency) I prefer to stick to Thai alphabet and redirect from Thai script and {{Thai abugida]]. −Woodstone 11:12, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

I have no opinion on moving the page, but as to this 'alphabet' being an abugida, somewhere the article should state that Thai consonants each spell a syllable in their own write --incorporating its assigned tone plus the sound 'aw' when written alone, as when spelling its own name, and aw, uh, ah or some similar sound when used in a word without a (written) vowel of its own. That being said, I know of only four words of one letter ก็ ธ ณ and บ่ the latter being Lao dialect for Not so! or You don't say! Lee 13:44, 27 January 2007 (UTC)PawyiLee

[edit] Transliteration

The transliterations of the letters is clearly intended to convey the sound when an English speaker says a word. However, because so many Thais will automatically convert some letter endings (even when reading english) I would always avoid some combinations when transliterating. The r/n conversion is particularly worrysome given the transliterations in the article.

For anybody not familiar with the way the language should sound there isn't any simple transliteration that will give the correct sound to an english speaker and keep Thais out of trouble (this is on the en site after all).

Personally I think that a comprise could be reached by replacing ors on the letters with aw. For example Kor kai would become kaw kai (although for this one letter I think a strong case can be made for using gaw gai or even gaw guy). --KayEss 19:19, 29 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I think none of the ฤ (ror reu), ฤๅ (ror reuu), ฦ (lor leu), ฦๅ (lor leuu) are consonant or consonant-vowel. They should be all vowels. Cheers, Art

They are in fact digraphs; Lao, which otherwise has a MUCH simpler 'alphabet', has 11 of them! Lee 15:49, 27 January 2007 (UTC)Pawyi Lee

[edit] The romanization blues

In roughly 30 years of dealing with the Thai language as an Anglophone scholar, I have yet to find a completely satisfactory, one-size fits all, system of romanizing the language. Well, of course not, it's impossible, unless the Thai government some day does what the Chinese did and invent an official system. Even then, it's bound to be inadequate for some purposes.

My preference is for giving the value of a character's sound in the International Phonetic Alphabet the first time it is used and using some less-obscure equivalent thereafter, to keep everyone from going cross-eyed. Accuracy is particularly important in an article with a linguistic subject. If the subject were Thai politics, what difference would it make? But when the subject is the Thai language, there is a lot to be said for precision.

As for ro-ruesi and company: in Thai they are consonant+vowel combinations. They correspond to now-extinct Sanskrit vocalic consonants. You know, you can write Sanskrit with perfect accuracy in the Thai alphabet, because it has preserved all the original characters, even when they are redundant in the Thai language. The Lao alphabet, which is essentially the same as the Thai alphabet, differs primarily in doing away with all the phonologically redundant characters. Goodbye ro-ruesi.

Might we in that case just put a footnote to the effect that the 'r' at the end of the words is not to be changed to an 'n' as is normal with Thai words?--KayEss 18:38, 27 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Other language and alphabet articles indicate the pronunciation with X-SAMPA symbols. This article should probably do the same. - Jim Henry

Because like the IPA, it means nothing unless you've already learnt the system? Markalexander100 02:59, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

I'm now attempting to hammer out a standardized Wikipedia format for romanizing Thai over at Wikipedia:Manual of Style for Thailand-related articles based largely on this article, please join in. Jpatokal 07:24, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Other symbols

I know that technically they may not be part of the alphabet, but we need to mention the other symbols of Thai script somewhere ([1] kind of thing). My suggestion would be to extend the tone marks table (which already includes mai taikhu) to be an "other symbols" table. If necessary we could rename the page "Thai script". Markalexander100 08:14, 9 Jul 2004 (UTC)

[edit] In fact there is an official romanized trascription of Thai

The official transcript of Thai to Latin letters is used in most of the official road signs for example. It has some basic problems, since it has no tones, no difference between short and long vowels or between the two kinds of "o"... but it's still much better than the strange "English like" ways people use too often (with the strange "r" everywhere, even there is no "r" sound"). Anyway you can see the official transcript and an alternative one on http://www.geocities.com/raz_h_h

It's the Royal Thai General System of Transcription you refer to, right? Well, we try to use that one whenever possible - see Wikipedia:Manual of Style for Thailand-related articles. BTW: welcome to Wikipedia. andy 20:34, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes, I refer to the "Royal" transcript. And by the way, even here in the "Thai" page they use this problematic "English like" transcript with all these strange "r"s. Most of the "r"s should be ignored... If it's my page I would update it as soon as possible ;-) The transcript offered on http://www.geocities.com/raz_h_h is close to the official one with the necessary additions, taking into account also the common problematic influence of English (avoids "ee", "oo" etc.) and with additional subscripts for easy reading by westerners...

The strange "r"s are the "Harvard r" and function like the "e" in "Like"; that is, they only affect the pronunciation of the preceding vowel.Lee 14:33, 27 January 2007 (UTC)PawyiLee

[edit] Does anyone has information about these 3 Thai symbols: อฺ อ๎ อํ ?

Apparently they're used in Sanskrit and Pali and they're not really Thai characters at all (according to my Thai wife).

She thinks the last one is pronounced 'ang' though. --KayEss 08:27, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

As a further note, she says that most Thai monks should be able to read them as the much of the scriptures are in Pali and Sanskrit. --KayEss 08:28, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The important part are of course the tone marks, the อ is only the silent consonant needed as tone marks cannot stand alone. According to [2] the อ๎ (Yamakkan) is an ancient punctuation mark, the Nikhahit อํ is part of a vowel symbol, but if alone it is a Pali consonant, and Pinthu อฺ is a marker of the final consonant in Pali, as well as having the same function as the Yamakkan. andy 17:09, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks very much. However, do you understand exactly how these 3 marks work? From you reference I understand that the first one can be used to mark a cluster even when in normal thai it would include a short "a" in between, the second mark adds also the keeping of the original sound of the consonant without changing it to another (like ch->t) and the last mark adds another consonant bet I'm not sure what consonant exactly. Is this true? Do you have any more information about the additional sound for the last mark?

All I kow is what was written on that site, maybe you can find more with the character names and google - that's how I found that site at first. But my wife didn't know those characters either and only could say the probably come from Pali, so they don't appear in any normal written Thai today anyway (or maybe anymore?), except maybe texts written for monks. andy 22:37, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

อํ is part of the vowel อำ, used in words like น้ำ.

I don't know about the use of these letters in writing Pali with Thai script, but phinthu (อฺ) is used for phonetic transcription of Thai in dictionaries, including the Royal Institute Dictionary. It goes under a letter to indicate that it is the first consonant in a cluster--i.e. โกรธ would be written phonetically as [โกฺรด] ([kroot]), which disambiguates its pronunciation. This sort of disambiguation is neccessary, since a word spelled โกรธ could theoretically be pronounced [โก-รด] or [กะ-โหฺรด] under Thai spelling rules.

As for yammakkan (อ๎), the only place I've seen it used is by Butterfly Book House (สำนักพิมพ์ผีเสื้อ), which uses archaic (and sometimes etymologically questionable) spellings of words, in an attempt to bring them back into currency. In some of its books it states on an introductory page that yammakkan indicates "half pronunciation" of the consonant below it, and appears to be used exclusively in transcribing foreign words. An example of its use is the dedication of the Thai version of Roald Dahl's Esio Trot. It reads: อุทิศแด่ โคล๎เวอร์ และ ลู้ค. The English version reads "To Clover and Luke." I'm not sure what this symbol is supposed to indicate, and I suspect that nobody but the Butterfly editors really know, either. rikker 02:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

I know how อ๎๎ was used. It used to stand above the first consonant in a consonant cluster to aviod ambiguity. Thus, เพ๎ลา would always be phlao, and always เพลา pheelaa. It is now obsolete. The other two have been used only in Pali texts, to correspond to some marks in that writing, and effects the pronounciation in certain ways. I saw a great text about it somewhere on the Internet, but I can't seem to find it right now. Yenx 23:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Typewriter story

I've heard the typewriter story about the two deprecated consonants, but is it just an urban myth? Is there a reference for it? --KayEss 05:53, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

FWIW, on my Thai computer keyboard about half the keys are used for four symbols, and about half are used for three, so there should be plenty of room. Mark¹ 05:58, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Don't forget we're talking about the old mechanical typewriters - on a computer keyboard much more is possible than it was at that antique stuff :-) Well, the story is from http://www.nationmultimedia.com/specials/100Bangkok/index_nov02.php - maybe someone have to go to the National Museum to verify those two letters are really left out. IIRC it had one of those typewriters on display there, but that's a long time ago I visited it. andy 12:11, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] y or ɨ?

"–ึ, sara eu, ɨ, in French "du" (short)"
"–ื, sara euu, ɨː, in French "dur" (long)"

The sounds in French "du" and "dur" are y, not ɨ. So which one is it? User:PlatypeanArchcow

I think the key phrase here is "very approximate equivalents". The fact that we resorted to French for an approximation may indicate that this is a sound which is quite foreign to the European mouth. Are there closer matches with which readers might be familiar? (By the way, you can sign comments with four tildas). Mark¹ 02:29, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

In Thai the corresponding sound is not rounded, so it cannot be /y/, choice is between /ɯ/ and /ɨ/ both of which come close. Sources differ, but in my ear /ɨ/ is closest. −Woodstone 13:43, 2005 May 5 (UTC)

[edit] align to Thai section of IPA handbook

Previously I had used the general table of the IPA to construct the best rendering of Thai in my ear, using a few other sources as well. I now have adapted to the specific section in the IPA handbook on Thai. Changes are mostly in the ch, oe and ue (RTGS) sounds. At the same time I changed the romanisations to RTGS. −Woodstone 15:38, July 10, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Old Thai

Should this article contain some information about the old Thai script as seen on the Ramkamhaeng stone thing? Maybe a graphic of it would be good to see. --Dara 06:40, July 11, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Number of vowels

A change in the number of vowels from 28 to 32 was reverted without comment. Counting the forms (except the implicit ones) in the table in the article comes to 32. In many books on the subject there is little consistency, especially in which diphthongs are counted. The reverter should explain why inconsistency between table and count is preferred above a seemingly arbitrary choice. −Woodstone 12:36, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I think Heron's point was just that uncited changes in numbers are suspicious. Mark¹ 13:01, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

That's right, Mark1, that was my point. I also agree with Woodstone about the lack of consistency in other references. I'm not sure that we can get away with stating a vowel count, since any number would be arbitrary. Our table has 35, of which the first 4 are not normally included in vowel lists. I think we've missed one: เ–ือะ, the short version of เ–ือ. That makes 32. Another four of our vowels (เ–็ –, –ั –, เ–ียว and เ–ิ –) appear only in the most eclectic lists, and not in my favourites at http://www.learningthai.com/vowels.html and http://thaiarc.tu.ac.th/thai/thindex.htm, so we are left with 28 core vowels. thaiarc.tu.ac.th lists only these. The next most popular number is 32, as at learningthai.com, which adds the four obsolete characters ฤ (ror reu), ฤๅ (ror reuu), ฦ (lor leu) and ฦๅ (lor leuu). I'm not going to edit the table yet, as I'm not very good at Thai. I'll wait for some expert opinions first. --Heron 22:33, 26 December 2005 (UTC)

The four vowels you prefer to exclude are actually all quite common.

• three (เ–็ –, –ั –, เ–ิ –) are omitted from many books because they are spelling variants that only occur in a closed syllable.
• the fourth (เ–ียว) is a diphthong ending in ว, which (next to the ones ending in ย) are usually not included. The reason this particular one is often included by exception is that it is not pronounced as you would expect from its composition.

The first four of the list in the article (implied a (–), implied o (– –), pali a (–รร–), and ua (–ว–)) are either not written explicitly or written using a consonant symbol.

Much of the difference seems to be caused by whether to count by spelling or by sound. For some vowels the way they are written in a closed syllable is different form how they appear in an open syllable (the table shows this by an added dash (–)). Here a list of correspondances following the same order as the main table:

• – (implied a) is a way to denote short a (–ะ) in the first syllable of a composite word
• – – (implied o) is the way to denote short o (โ–ะ) in a closed syllable
• –รร– is a way to write short a (–ะ) in a closed syllable (in words of pali origin)
• –ว– is the way to write ua (–ัว) in a closed syllable
• –ั – is the way to write short a (–ะ) in a closed syllable
• เ–็ – is the way to write short e (เ–ะ) in a closed syllable
• เ–ิ – is the way to write long or short oe (เ–อ or เ–อะ) in a closed syllable

• เ–ียว is not pronounced like เ–ีย+ว (ia-w), but like io, (but RTGS is not consistent here)

The obsolete characters ฤ, ฤๅ, ฦ, ฦๅ are included in the consonant table

So from the 35 vowels in the table in the article, if counted by sound (and not counting the regular diphthongs eding in ว or ย), there are 28 vowels. If counted by (explicit) spelling there are 33 (or 32 if เ–ียว is discounted).

We might put these conclusions in the article. −Woodstone 12:12, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Thanks for explaining, Woodstone. For the record, I don't "prefer to exclude" anything; I would rather we list all possible vowels, but also explain why some of them don't appear in other people's lists. As you yourself have demonstrated, it is impossible to state the number of vowels without qualification. --Heron 12:28, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

I have added 11 diphthongs; there are still about 5 more rare diphthongs and one alternative spelling in closed syllables. I am considering to expand the lead in the vowel section to explain the system better. −Woodstone 15:45, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

In the views of a Thai speaker who never studied linguistics, it seems inconcistencies arise in part from the function of some diphthongs/tripthongs which in traditional Thai language (or at least what is taught grade school anyway,) are considerd to be vowels with closing consonants (namedly, ว and ย). For example, whereas "–วย sara uai" is listed in the article at the moment, there is no such thing as "sara uai" in normal usage of the Thai language, because it is considred to be sara ua (สระอัว) with ย as an end consonant.

To illustrate, If all the vowel combinations were to be arranged into the 32 traditional vowel sounds with the "default" form preceding, it should look something like

	short vowels	long vowels
สระเดี่ยว	-ะ, -ั- (includes -ัย)	-า, -า- (includes -าย and -าว)
	-ิ, -ิ- (includes -ิว)	-ี, -ี-
	-ึ, -ึ-	-ือ, -ื-
	-ุ, -ุ-	-ู, -ู-
	เ-ะ, เ-็-	เ-, เ-- (includes เ-ว)
	แ-ะ, แ-็-	แ-, แ-- (includes แ-ว)
	โ-ะ, --	โ-, โ--
	เ-าะ (doesn't exist in closed syllable)	-อ, -อ- (includes -อย), -ร (when ร is the closing consonant)
	เ-อะ (doesn't exist in closed syllable)	เ-อ, เ-ิ-, เ-ย (ย is considered the closing consonant) and in few cases, เ-อ- (includes เ-อว)
สระประสม	-ัวะ (doesn't exist in closed syllable)	-ัว, -ว- (includes -วย)
	เ-ียะ (doesn't exist in closed syllable)	เ-ีย, เ-ีย- (includes เ-ียว)
	เ-ือะ (doesn't exist in closed syllable)	เ-ือ, เ-ือ- (includes เ-ือย)
สระเกิน	-ำ
	ใ-
	ไ-
	เ-า
	ฤ	ฤๅ
	ฦ	ฦๅ

The implied a (-) and ro han (-รร = un; -รร- = a) are usually treated as different concepts since they are inherently borrowed from pali/sanskrit. Also, the name of a vowel is the same regardless of its form e.g. -ะ and -ั- are both sara a (สระอะ) whereas mai han-akat is the name of the symbol itself. Similarly, เ-อ, เ-ิ-, เ-ย and เ-อว are all sara oe (สระเออ). Another point to note is -ว- is considered a vowel form in the same way -อ is, since ย, ว and อ all serve as vowel symbols (so ว is a vowel symbol in -ัวะ, -ัว and -ว- but in the other mentioned instances are treated as closing consonants.)

I am not saying the arrangement should be changed. One point I would like to point out, however, is that the names sara uai, sara oi, sara ai (for ัย and -าย), sara ao (for -าว), sara iu, sara eo, sara iao and sara aeo are not existent in the Thai language.--Paul C 13:59, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Hi Paul C, thanks for the excellent structuring of the vowels above. It makes complete sense to me (as a very imperfect Thai speaker). We should work this into the article. −Woodstone 14:10, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

• 28 or 32 vowels, there are only 15 symbols. In So Sethraputra dictionaries the order of these symbols is |อ |ะ | ั |า | ำ | ิ | ี | ึ ื | ุ | ู | เ | แ โ | ใ | but check a dictionary's preface to see what order it uses [if any]. Confusion arises because until recently vowels were considered mere symbols Lee 17:35, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Punctuation

The everything2 page [3] has some interesting stuff about the punctuation marks used with Thai script. Someone who knows about it should probably work it into this article. Marnanel 03:42, 23 November 2006 (UTC)